Ethos

I went back to where it all began.   Full-time ministry, that is!    I just returned from my annual leave in Canada, and while we were there on a Sunday we gathered for worship with the people from my first congregation.   Things have sure changed.   Not just the church, but the whole community.   The country town had become an urban sprawl.   The church building had been recently remodelled and updated.   Everyone looked a whole lot older, and so did we.   It was no wonder;  we left that church 33 years ago to plant a new church.   So much had changed.

For me what changed the most was the congregation itself.   Thirty years ago the church was packed full of people with chairs up and down every aisle.   Even the balcony was full.   Today this same church was less than a third the size.   I know that this congregation had gone through some very difficult years.   And these years had its toll on the church.   But I remember when I started my years of ministry in that church.   I was determined to bring a change of ethos -- to help this church adopt a culture of reaching lost people with the gospel.   I shared this vision over and over again.  A number of lost were found and lots of people were reached with the good news of Jesus.  The church was growing in number.   And then after three years we left.  It was so good seeing the lovely people of this church, but I could not help wonder what happened to that initial momentum of outreach and growth?

Perhaps you wonder about the same thing in your own church.   How do we bring about a change of ethos in a church -- an ethos that sticks?   This is what desire in the CRCA!    We are committed “to reform continually the life of the denomination (including our church ethos, customs, church order, use of resources, denominational committees, support staff and agencies) to encourage and enable the fulfilment of the fundamental aim.”   We call this the task of ALIGN!   And what is the fundamental aim we are aiming for?   It is our mission: reforming to reach the lost for Christ!

So how do you go about changing the ethos or culture of a church, or in the case of the CRCA, the whole denomination?    Vision alone will not create a change of culture!   You can preach it, teach it, preach it again, and hold all kinds of seminars -- but vision alone will not change the culture of a church, a denomination, a community, or the world.    The only way to change culture is to make more of it.   I learned this fundamental rule from Andy Crouch in his seminal book, Culture Making.   He argues in this book that "if we seek to change culture, we will have to create something new, something that will persuade our neighbours to set aside some existing set of cultural goods for our new proposals."   If you want to change the ethos of a church or a community you need to make new things happen -- things that will convince people, especially those outside the church, to want to be part of the something you are making happen.  

This is what happened in the early days of the Christian church.   Many have written how in the first centuries in Rome the killing of babies was widespread.  Sexual immorality, adultery, divorce, and pornography were widespread.    Fathers had the right to kill their wives and children.   It was into this depraved cultural context that Christians would introduce a radically new and different view of life, sexuality, marriage, and parenting.   Christians adopted abandoned babies and taught husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the church.   And in obedience to Jesus, Christians began to care for the poor, the sick, and those on the margins of society -- the very ones neglected by the pagans and their priests.  This new way of doing life convinced many to join the church.   And the very culture of Rome changed.   For centuries!

So do you want to see the ethos or culture of your church change?   What about the culture of Australia?   Then make culture!    Borrowing from Andy Crouch, find friends and form a group of people who are willing to see grace at work in one another's lives.   Discern together what crosses each has been called bear.    Use your gifts for the glory of God.   Join hands with people who have a holy respect for power and a holy willingness to spend their power alongside the powerless, the poor, the sick, and those on the margins.   Make something of the world we live in -- something so radically new and different that those beyond the church doors cannot resist to want to be part of.